1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a radio network with bidirectionally operating data collectors which communicate data, telegrams from data-generating terminal devices to a data-documenting master data collector.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
A radio network of that kind which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,094 is operated in the United States of America by Itron Inc. in order to be able to collect billing-relevant consumption data from consumers resident distributed over wide areas, collected at a few locations which can be easily reached, for the purposes of consumption billing, without having to call on the consumers in such thinly populated regions individually for the purposes of reading meters. In that system each terminal device which includes the meters is in radio communication in parallel with at least two data collectors for the primary communication of its measurement data telegrams. The reliability of that radio network which operates over a large area is based on that redundancy in the primary radio connections between on the one hand the data-generating terminal devices at the consumers and on the other hand the data collectors for intermediate storage and forwarding of current data telegrams. As a result, the current data of each terminal device are at present complete, being identical in terms of content, in at least two of the data collectors. It will be noted that this involves in particular the need for a considerable amount of storage space in the data collectors and then later, in the course of data processing, a correspondingly high level of additional expenditure and complication for finding the currently valid data, while excluding the doublets which originate from the same terminal device and which, in spite of having the same origin and the same content, by virtue of transmission over different radio paths or because of temporary reception blockages, are only available with a greater or lesser time displacement. A radio network which is designed in such a way makes a significant very adverse difference, in terms of technical expenditure and cost, in particular when a plurality of data terminal devices are operated in relatively closely adjacent relationship, such as for example in a suburban housing estate or indeed in urban apartment blocks.